


Self Soothing

by PrettyArbitrary



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Nightmares, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Project Freelancer, RvB Angst War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7477956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyArbitrary/pseuds/PrettyArbitrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Church doesn’t let Wash face his nightmares alone.  After all, they’re his nightmares too.  Might as well face-punch those demons together, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self Soothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IMAgentMI](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IMAgentMI/gifts).



Even on a military base that’s fully staffed at all times, life as an AI gets really, _really_ boring in the middle of the night. Church likes to fill the graveyard shift with housekeeping in the civil grid, because he’s just a fucking humanitarian like that. Project of the moment is recalibrating this stupid-ass filter that’s been letting heavy metals into the water system. He’s just launched the catalytic rebalancing, which is of course when his feelers in the comm network get pinged.

One or another of the guys—does Carolina count as a ‘guy’?—tries their hardest to die at least once a week. Church might’ve taken advantage of his semi-authorized access to the city systems to also set flags on their most common danger signs, like explosions, Freckles or Lopez laughing. This one is Wash and his waking-up-from-a-nightmare noises. Church tunes into the comm unit in his quarters just in time to catch a quiet word that ends in, “-lon?”

He sounds fucked up. Hell, the fact he’s calling out for Epsilon is all kinds of fucked up. And not today’s lovable flavor of ChurchƐ; that soft ‘here’s me not screaming’ tone comes straight from their brief time together on the Mother of Invention, before things went the rest of the way to hell.

Having nightmares isn’t special around here. PTSD is the top cultural export of Chorus these days. But most of them don’t dream about, like, Church’s dead girlfriend gone horribly awry or having their brains torn apart by yours truly. It’s kind of personal.

Fuck it, the army won’t come down with lead poisoning in a single day.

“I’m here,” he says through the comm speaker before the ring of Wash’s voice has faded from the room. “It’s okay, man, I’m here.” Wash is on his knees next to his bed, and not in a graceful way. It looks like he fell. The covers are half pulled off and still kind of tangled around him. “How’d you get down there?”

Wash, who’s a shaking nonverbal wreck, folds over to push his face against his knees and makes this little noise.

The noise is a Freelancer thing. Church can remember all of them making it when they were hurt, probably because the Director took points off for showing distress like a fucking normal person. They’d make this little hurt noise for, like, broken bones and the death of their beloved puppy and shit that’d have anybody else a howling drippy mess on the floor.

It was fairly goddamned awful. That hasn’t changed any.

Without really thinking about it, Church projects himself and reaches out to stroke Wash’s hair. His hand’s just a hologram, but Wash leans into it like he can feel it. Maybe he sort of can. Who the fuck knows? It’s not like they ever talk about...you know.

“Epsilon,” he whispers, with a rawness that makes Church glitch. Like Church of all godforsaken assholes can somehow ground him.

Here’s a secret neither Church nor Wash has ever told anybody: they can’t stand each other. They can keep it professional in public, but when it’s just the two of them, when it’s _personal?_ Church would rather de-rez himself than have to spend time alone with Wash, and the feeling is mutual.

See, even when Wash can’t remember his own fucking name or where he is, he still knows Epsilon. He _always_ knows Epsilon. And somewhere in his head, so deep that all the bullshit he’s been through hasn’t managed to squash it, he actually trusts Epsilon.

Nobody should trust Church. Least of all Wash. Just thinking about it makes Church want to shove Wash over and run for it. Instead he hunches down till he’s speaking right into Wash’s ear, as close to inside his head as he gets these days. “Listen to me, dude. You’re okay. I know you feel like shit right now and nothing makes sense, but I promise you, this’ll pass.”

Wash turns toward him, moves like he wants to lean into him and shit, Church’d let him if he could. Thankfully the universe has taken a stand against AIs and cuddling. He just hovers close till Wash pulls himself together. Maybe he ghost-pets his hair a bit more. Nobody can prove anything.

After a little while, Wash manages to uncurl from his crash position and push himself up. “We’re...not on the Mother, are we?”

Church sighs. “No. Not for a long time. Look, just do me a favor and don’t think about it too hard? It’ll come back to you if you just give it time.” Fight not your memories lest they own your pathetic ass; it’s hard-earned wisdom he’s tried dropping on Wash before, but the stubborn bitch has yet to figure out how to surrender on anything, ever. “What did you dream about?”

Wash props his shoulders against the edge of his bed and lets his head fall back. “They kept dying.” He doesn’t seem to notice that he’s wrapped a hand around Church’s intangible wrist. Then again, he might have forgotten Church isn’t actually real to him these days. It’s a toss-up what year he’s living in his head right now. He sounds halfway between lost and bitter. “I couldn’t save them. I was supposed to figure out how to—”

“Shh.” The motherfucking simulations. Yeah, no, they’re not talking about that. “They weren’t real. You know that. They were just dreams.”

Wash rolls his head back and forth against the mattress. His nose wrinkles a little with irritation at being shushed. “Not those. This was…”

Church waits for a second or two before he catches on to Wash’s train of thought. “Don’t.”

It’s weird how alike their lives have ended up in some ways. They both devote a lot of themselves to keeping the stupid bastards they love alive in defiance of the odds and their own idiocy. It’s not really so different from the dickbag’s simulations, if you think about it. At least if you think about it at 0347 in a darkened room on too little sleep. Which Church _wasn’t_ , till just now.

“Listen to me.” He leans down over Wash until they’re nose to nose. Close enough to be weird. Close enough to really drill this into that thick Freelancer skull. “They’re all fine. You and me, we’re not gonna let anything happen. They’re all fine and they’re going to stay that way, if it takes me pulling off some kind of superhuman bullshit stunt to make sure of it. And so will you, you heroic asshole. So you dream whatever fucked up shit you need to, buddy, but _it’s not real_. You got that?”

Should it work, talking like that to a guy who’s caught halfway in flashbacks and dissociative fuckery? Probably not. But Church is magic. It’s not that Wash isn’t annoyed by it, but, well, maybe he’s too annoyed to be anything else. Or hell, maybe he’s actually just paying attention for fucking once, because after a moment he nods. Church is a fucking Wash-whisperer.

“Good.” Church sits back. “You are just a bag of brain cactus, aren’t you? If I asked you if you had some warm milk before bed, it’d probably trigger something.”

Wash rubs his hands over his face. “York used to drink that stuff. It was disgusting.”

“Goddamn you.”

Wash huffs something that might be a laugh, might be another shudder. But his eyes are slanted toward Church, and looking a little less wild and glassy than they were, so. Win.

They can’t talk about it. There’s not enough distance. Not in the goddamn galaxy. All these years and one unguarded moment can put them right back, well, here. Talk about what: how Wash still aches deep in Church’s head like an amputation site? About this haunting feeling they’re both lowkey terrified to admit to, like what’s really wrong is that they’re _too far apart_ and the only way to heal this torn thing inside them both is to come back together? Yeah, talking is out, and they can’t fucking touch without Epsilon jumping into Wash’s mind and body, and haha, no. But here they are, looking at each other. It’s enough to make a dude wonder what might have been if it’d all gone down differently.

...Eh. “You gonna get back into bed any fucking time soon?” he asks. “What, am I your babysitter now?” He starts singing a lullaby while Wash flops his way up onto the bed to chuck a pillow through his head. Who needs emotional honesty when tormenting friends is an option?


End file.
